


To hear the sweet nightingall sing

by OldShrewsburyian



Category: Robin Hood (2010), Robin Hood - All Media Types
Genre: (Robin's), 5+1 Things, Aftermath of Violence, Ballads, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Families of Choice, Feelings, Food, Historical Accuracy, Medieval Medicine, Missing Scene, One Shot, Pining, Romance, Saints, greenwood sustainability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:27:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24293599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldShrewsburyian/pseuds/OldShrewsburyian
Summary: Marion gets used to sleeping in the greenwood, or, 5 times she didn't get to sleep and one time she did.(I thought we deserved to see what happened between the battle and the establishment of the greenwood community. Also, we deserved more of the Robin/Marion relationship.)
Relationships: Marion Loxley & Walter Loxley, Robin Longstride & Marion Loxley, Robin Longstride/Marion Loxley
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	To hear the sweet nightingall sing

Marion does not expect the greenwood to be so cold. It is May — the leaves are large and long — but the ground is still chilled. They cannot, of course, risk a fire. She lies wrapped in her cloak, tucked into a small hollow that she found for herself, and shivers. She lies on the threshold of sleep; sometimes she is drowning in the salt tide, gasping for breath while men scream; sometimes she is painfully aware of the turf beneath her; always she is cold.

Marion tells herself that she will grow used to this. She tells herself that she must grow used to this. She is almost ready to cry with exhaustion. When the sentries change, she is torn between irritation at the noise, and a sense of reassurance at other human movement, human presence. She finds that she recognizes Robin Longstride’s step. She wonders whether this should bother her more, or less. She sits up, chafes her arms.

“Marion?” His voice is hoarse. “What are you doing?”

“Taking my turn on watch,” she whispers back. “Where do I go?”

“Not necessary,” he says, and crouches down. “Not after today.”

“But — ”

“There are enough of us,” he says. “Enough who didn’t have to fight as well.”

“You fought,” she points out. She is proud of the logic of her reasoning; she is annoyed by the fact that her teeth are chattering.

“Used to it,” he says, and then: “Let me lie with you.”

“What?” She looks around to see if anyone has been roused, and repeats, more softly: “What?” Just like a man, she thinks — just like _him_ — to try to get out of losing an argument.

“Less cold that way,” he says gently. She wonders if he can read her thought. He does not move for several moments. When he does, it is merely to nod his head sideways. “Alan and Will and John are in a pile over there. The children lie together.”

Marion fails to stifle a yawn. “I still sleep with a dagger.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

* * *

It becomes habit; as he observed on the first night, it is a habit born of necessity. 

“Marion?” he says one night.

“Mm.” He is silent for long enough that she has time to think about how accustomed she has become to his particular warmth, to the shape of him in the darkness.

“Nothing,” he says at last, and chuckles under his breath. “I just…” He clears his throat. “I wanted to be sure of you.” She waits. “Not…” he says, “not… I wanted to know that you were there.”

She knows that _Where did you think I was?_ is the wrong question. She does not think she can ask: _Where did you think you were?_ Instead, Marion reaches for his hand. His fingers are dry and warm, and grip hers too tightly. Marion lies awake for what feels like a long time, listening to the sound of his breathing.

* * *

She knows, of course, that he loves her. And she… she is out of practice with loving. Robert Loxley was, Marion knows, a good man. A decent man, and a courteous one. And Marion was grateful for the affection between them, and mourned his absence and his suffering, and mourned, too, his death. But she did not have much time to love him at all. Walter had she loved. Sir Walter had been kind and generous. Under his roof, Marion had been allowed to flourish as the lady of Pepperharrow, keys at her belt and power in her hands. She had watched over the maids and men under her care, had seen that the poor were fed and the sick succored, had made her prayers to Christ and his mother and his saints, and had insulted Father Tancred as often as she could get away with it. Little had she loved.

“Marion,” says Robin, exasperated, “I can feel you thinking. Go to sleep.”

Marion yawns, and turns over, and buries her face in his chest. “Can’t sleep,” she says.

* * *

She insists on going back to Pepperharrow, on making one of the party charged with raiding the manor house for whatever they can find. Tapestries can be made into coats; benches can be fashioned into barricades. In the kitchen, for a wonder, Marion’s medicine cabinet still stands, with its herbs and spices. But among the fire-marked stones there are still the ghosts of a life that Marion never got to live: laughter that she and her husband would never share, children they would never have.

That night, she lies shaking in Robin’s arms, and she knows she does not have to explain. “What did you have to leave behind?” she asks. 

He sighs. “Less than a man should. I knew little of the king, less of his cause, and yet…”

“But you never lost yourself.”

Robin chuckles, deep in his chest. “May have mislaid him, once or twice. But no. I was lucky that way, I suppose. Or watched over by some saint. Saint Martin, maybe — George always seemed a bit too definite for my liking.”

“Martin, then,” she agrees. “I sometimes wonder…”

“What?” he asks softly, when she lets the silence stretch. “Wonder what?”

“Well,” she says, “I was my father’s daughter. And then — and then I was the lady of Pepperharrow, neither widow or wife, but lady of the manor all the same. Now… now I suppose I’m just Marion.”

She does not think she is imagining that his breath quickens a little. “Good night,” he says, “Marion.”

* * *

The wheat that is Friar Tuck’s miracle and Robin’s is ripe for the harvest. The work is done by all, and as in the early spring, the work is done at night. In addition to taking her shifts, Marion bandages bleeding hands, and harvests the plants that can be made into soup, and stacks the grain dry. She worries about Robin, she finds. He is everywhere, it seems: giving the boys tasks they can perform, and reassuring the sentries, and conferring with Friar Tuck, and taking counsel with his men, for his they are. Her, Marion notices, he trusts to get on with things, and manage as she has always managed. Or perhaps he simply does not presume to tell her what to do.

“I suppose,” says Alan-a-Dale, grimacing as she bandages his palm, “that we’ll be grateful when we’re not starving.” 

Marion smiles wearily at him. “Yes. Is this,” she adds impulsively, “what Robin is always like?”

“Oh aye,” says Alan readily, and grins. “Why do you think we love him?” He is gone before she can reply, and she dips her fingers once more into the yarrow salve.

On the feast of John the Baptist, she and Robin stand side by side at the edge of the harvested field, as dawn begins to lighten the sapphire sky. “I’ve always thought,” she says, “that the Virgin’s mantle must be just that color.”

“Yes,” he says. There is dust in the cracks of his skin, too little flesh on his bones. Marion slips her hand into his. 

“There’ll be bonfires on the hills tonight,” she says. 

“Mm.” He moistens his lips. “Do you suppose we might risk one?”

“I do.”

“Precious little to eat,” he says.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never poached a deer, Robin Longstride.”

He looks at her, startled — and Marion leans up and kisses him.

* * *

The deer is a fine one, and merry they are indeed in the breaking and the roasting of it. Friar Tuck’s Latin grace is short enough that even the boys wait for its conclusion before setting to their makeshift trenchers. 

“They’ll make themselves sick,” says Robin, too weary to be very exercised about it.

“Not they,” says Marion, leaning into his side. “They’ve been at this longer than we have, little beggars.”

“Much,” says Robin.

“Yes,” agrees Marion wryly, “much longer. Did I tell you they plundered our grain stores at Pepperharrow last year? Their ringleader, the one with the mask…”

“Much,” says Robin. “That’s what I mean — his name is Much. He finally told me. Much the miller’s son.”

“Oh,” says Marion softly; and Robin looks so pleased with himself, with this small and tender triumph, that she kisses him again. The ensuing childish whooping subsides so suddenly that she suspects Will or John must have had something to do with it; but she cannot be bothered to investigate.

“Marion,” says Robin, a little dazedly, as she draws away.

“Yes,” she says; “yes.” 

They eat their dinner with hands clasped like children, or like sweethearts fearful of being parted — which is, Marion supposes, what they are. They dance, that night, to Alan’s music; and then Marion leads Robin away from the fire. And later, in the murmuring silence of the greenwood, she sleeps sound.

**Author's Note:**

> Readers may note that this deliberately draws on ballad materials as well as the Ridley Scott film. I was really interested by what the film did with farming, so I've included some of that as well.


End file.
